"IMP" 2003 Obituary

IMPERIO o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-01-24 published
Truth is emerging in Trinidad deaths
By Colin FREEZE Crime Reporter; With a report from Ken
THOMAS
in Port of Spain. Friday, January 24, 2003, Page A5
The bruised and bloated bodies of the young newlyweds washed
ashore on a remote beach in Trinidad.
Even in death, they lay close together. Inside the woman's belly
was their unborn baby. A suspicious double drowning cruelly ended
the promise of a new family.
Today, one veteran homicide investigator says that the 1994 honeymoon
deaths of Geoff
BARNES, 23, and Sherelle Ann
IMPERIO-
BARNES,
22, are the result of one of the most elaborate conspiracies
he has witnessed. Yet another theory calls the tragedy an accident.
Only now is the truth beginning to surface in court.
For years, criminal investigators have believed that the vacationing
Toronto couple was drugged and drowned in a scheme hatched by
conspirators intent on collecting life-insurance money.
Yet only one man has ever been formally accused of murder: Roland
(Bobby) DOORGADEEN, whose trial has begun in the capital of the
Caribbean island nation of 1.5 million people.
After a lengthy investigation by Trinidadian authorities, Mr.
DOORGADEEN was charged with the murders in 1998. The former Trinidadian
police officer and convicted car thief has pleaded not guilty.
But he will be hanged if a jury finds him guilty.
On the witness stand yesterday was the prosecution's star witness
his estranged wife.
Nicole DOORGADEEN testified that in May, 1994, two men in a rental
car came to pick up her husband. She said he returned much later
in the evening, bellowing from the car: "Don't come outside.
Send a scrubbing brush for me."
After the two men drove away, Mr.
DOORGADEEN came into the house
in his underwear, Mrs.
DOORGADEEN testified. He held a bottle
of chloroform, she said, adding that she later found his clothes
covered with sand.
She also testified that her husband later said he was expecting
a "large sum" of about $50,000. And that "one day, while looking
at television, he told me that he killed the Canadians and explained
how he did it," she told the court.
Her husband said he and two other men drugged the couple and
dragged them into the sea, she said. A previous witness has testified
he saw Mr.
DOORGADEEN with the Canadian couple at a beach house.
Next week, the jury is expected to hear from former Toronto homicide
detective Tom
KLATT. "I had given my word to the family that
I would follow this through to the end," Mr.
KLATT said a few
hours before boarding his flight to Trinidad yesterday.
Working with insurance adjusters and Trinidad police, Mr.
KLATT
said he discovered that a former boyfriend of Sherelle-Ann
IMPERIO-
BARNES
had taken out a $100,000 life-insurance policy on her. The insurance,
which would have paid double if her death was ruled accidental,
survived the relationship.
Despite the breakup and Ms.
IMPERIO's marriage, the ex-boyfriend
didn't sever his ties. In fact, Mr.
KLATT said, he bought the
newlyweds tickets to his home country -- Trinidad.
The ex-boyfriend still lives in Canada and has not been charged
in connection with the deaths.
"There's a simple explanation," he told a Toronto Star reporter
a year after the killings. He then referred questions to his
lawyer, who refused to say anything more.
With matters still before the courts, Mr.
KLATT did not want
to discuss the investigation further, except to say the insurance
was never collected. But the veteran of 70 homicide investigations
called the Barnes' case "one of the most complete conspiracies
that I've ever been involved in."
The nine-year wait for justice has been excruciating for the
victims' families.
"From the day it happened we said it would take a long time,"
Tom BARNES,
Geoff's 60-year-old father, said in an interview
from his home in Georgetown, Ontario
The court has already heard that autopsies uncovered traces of
cocaine in the dead couple's systems. The judge has asked the
jury to consider whether the couple might have accidentally drowned.
But Mr. KLATT, who once investigated international drug networks,
said this theory is inconsistent with his investigation.
"There was zero information, evidence, hearsay, assumption or
guesses that would suggest that either one of these two had ever
been involved with drugs, or alcohol for that matter," he said.